The end of the year is almost upon us and I am not ready for it in any shape or form. Things got super intense at uni this month as I had to submit my PhD research proposal to my department for early feedback before the funding deadline in January, so I’ve been working flat out on my proposal all month meaning that both my reading and blog got horribly neglected. I had been planning for November & December to be my catch up months, and the thought of having to squeeze all of the catch up into just December now is making me a bit nervous haha!
I beat my second reading challenge goal of the year! Round 1 saw me smash my goal of 50 books, and now I’ve beaten my stretch goal too!
Read
→ The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot – ★★★☆☆ ←
→ Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – ★★★☆☆ ←
→ The Princess Diaries 2 by Meg Cabot – ★★★☆☆ ←
→ Red Rising by Pierce Brown – ★★★★★ ←
→ I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson – ★★★★☆ ←
I had such an amazing TBR set up for this month as I was taking part in both the #Mythothon and Science Fiction Month but sadly couldn’t read as much as I had planned to. However, I am super proud for finally reading both Red Rising and I’ll Give You the Sun, both of which have been on my TBR for the past 1-2 years! Red Rising without a doubt is my favourite book of the month (and probably of the entire year), it was so incredible. I also fell entirely in love with IGYTS but there were one or two things which stopped me short of giving it 5 stars!
Currently Reading
The Boneless Mercies was one of my most anticipated reads of 2018 and I was lucky enough to be approved for an ARC of it. I’m literally about 2-3 chapters away from finishing it, so fingers crossed can count it towards my November reads!
Games
NGL, I might not have been blogging a lot this month but I sure did find a lot of time to sink into the Sims 4… Although in my defence, it’s a great way to unwind from academic stress at the end of the day. My little queer family has now grown to include 2 children, Grace (cuddles) and Eva (naked wild child) though they are no longer toddlers! As I’ve been playing it so much and it was Black Friday I bought the Parenting game pack and the Get to Work expansion pack. We’re hoping that Grace will grow up to be a doctor and who knows what mischief Eva’s future holds!
On the Blog
This month was atrocious for blogging. I barely got any content out even though I had lots of great ideas for Sci-Fi Month and I have books waiting to be reviewed that I read back in October! Hopefully, December will be much more productive…
November TBR | #Mythothon & Science Fiction Month
State of the ARC #3
The Sunday Post | Reading Week Joy
TTT | A love letter to all of the owned books I still haven’t read
Book Tag | Sci-Fi Month
The Sunday Post | Book Cons & Hauls
SFX Book Con 2 | Rockets, Racism and Reality
Book Tag | The End of the Year
I had so many plans for this month and it was really disappointing not being able to carry many of them out, so I’m aiming for December to be a much more chill and flexible month before I kick back in gear for 2019! Let me know how your November went – are you all prepped for December or, like me, are you hopelessly ill-prepared?
Red Rocket Panda 
Well done on working so hard on your PHD application!! I’m super impressed, because our master’s cohort basically got told not to do it this year because it was too difficult to do alongside a fulltime workload. Nearly everyone in our department has given up, including me (mostly because academics are terrible at replying to very important emails **SIGH**). This is an amazing achievement, I hope everything goes well!! 😀
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Haha to be fair my masters programme is completely different as it’s a research masters rather than a taught masters so the year is designed around applying for our PhD!
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I am so happy you enjoyed Red Rising and I’ll Give You the Sun- two of my favourite books! I made a lot of time for the Sims 4 this month as well, especially with the new Get Famous expansion pack coming out. I hope you have a great December!
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Thanks Kristin! Hope you have a great December too!
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Lovely wrap up! I’m so glad you enjoyed I’ll Give You the Sun, it’s one of my favorites. I have The Boneless Mercies on my TBR, so I look forward to hearing what you think of it 😊
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I’ll Give You the Sun killed me in so many ways. NoahandJude ❤ ❤ ❤
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Nice job beating your second reading challenge goal of the year! I was hoping to have time to read Red Rising this month, but sadly didn’t get the chance. I’ll have to definitely try for December. I really want to read I’ll Give You the Sun too. I have quite a few books I want to try to read in December that I swore I would read before the year ends and that is also one of them, haha. Happy to see you enjoyed them. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on The Boneless Mercies. I hope you have a great December! 🙂
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Thanks Ashley! I remember last year only reading 25 books, so to have read over 75 books so far is amazing to me xD
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The last time i played Sims 4, only the base game was out. Had a look the other day and whoa, so much stuff!!! 😀
Get to work, pets and the weather one looked cool.
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Haha I know. I bought the base game but didn’t enjoy it really, and by the time I went back there was so much stuff… I’m never going to be able to catch up with it all now xD The pets pack and the get to work one is definitely fun. Seasons is one I want to get at some point because the game is so static without weather and seasons!
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Congrats on finishing your challenge!! I really need to read Frankenstein already. It was compulsory reading for my BA but I never read it…
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I really didn’t love it at all! I was so disappointed but I’m glad to have read it and know what it’s about now?
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Yikes, I’m sorry you were disappointed. To be honest I’ve had very few good experiences with classics, but I want to at least give it a try 😦
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I’ll Give You the Sun is definitely among my favorite YA romances, and Nelson’s other book, The Sky is Everywhere, is equally fantastic. Her writing style is just so unique and musical.
Congrats on killing your Goodreads goal!
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Thanks! It’s the first Jandy book I’ve ever read. At first I wasn’t too sure about the writing style but it really grew on me as the book developed.
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I guess sometimes there isn’t enough time and energy to do a lot of blogging and the things we need to do for our offline life. I am sure it was a good call to prioritize your research paper 🙂 And you still read quite a lot! I haven’t managed that many books for MONTHS haha but wow, I am SO happy you love Red Rising! My blog at some point almost became a Red Rising/Pierce Brown appreciation blog, because I mentioned it in EVERY post or tag. It’s so brilliant!
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On one hand, it has to suck that you can’t invest the time you want in your blog and reading but.. I’m actually happy to see you still find ways to relax – and what better way than Sims? Come on..!
[Reminds me I’m playing Sims later today because we cannot decide on paint colors for our house and I had the brilliant idea of recreating our house on Sims to figure it out? Let’s hope it works. xD]
I really, really need to read Red Rising! I keep seeing five star-reviews. Same goes for Scythe.. But December is usually a contemporary / romance reading month for me so we’ll see when I get there..
I’m kind of.. prepared for December? At least blog-wise.. The rest of my life is turned upside down with all the changes happening and bound to happen but we’ll get there. We both will.
Keeping my fingers crossed for your proposal to work out without any hiccups!
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Omg that is such a good idea! I’ve been having a lot of fun building and decorating in the Sims 4 as the tools are so much easier, and its a good place to practice before decorating your house IRL 😉
Oooh definitely read Red Rising at some point if you can. I wasn’t going to ask for books for Christmas but after finishing it I had to ask for the next 2 books xD
Thanks! I won’t find out until February/March if my proposal gets accepted so it’s going to be a stressful few months!
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Well, I got awfully pissed at Sims 3 because I couldn’t get things exactly as our house is. Pretty sure that’s me being me and not Sims being an ass.. Maybe I should give it another shot in Sims 4, haha. 😛
Psssht! A Christmas wish list without books?! NO CAN DO, AVERY! 😛 I already ordered my Christmas books though.. [I don’t even want to admit how much money I spent..] so if I like the first one, the next installments will have to wait a looooong long time. xD
Oh booo. It sucks when it takes that long for things to come true! At least you have plenty of other things to focus on in the meantime!
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Ooooh yes. I was going to recommend trying to do it in the Sims 4 if you can. The building tool is SOOOOOO much easier in that.
Ssshhhhh. I’m trying to be responsible and read all of my books from YALC and my birthday. And all of my ARCs… I’m drowning.
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Probably a to do for this weekend! Now I’m just hoping I didn’t.. throw the entire game off my pc because I’m pretty sure I already packed up the game itself.. Uh-oh..
Ugh, ARCs. Somehow I ended up with 5 January ARCs and I just cannot..
We’ll get through them! But still – you should definitely have books on a Christmas wish list.
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Looks like you had a good reading month even though you didn’t have much time, and I hope your proposal got some good feedback! Happy reading this month, and playing Sims 4!
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Yeay for beating your second reading challenge. And having to work on your research proposal must be so stressful. I hope your early feedback was good.
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I hope it will be! We haven’t got it back yet and not sure when I will!
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